Such are specimens of the tales which go to make up the Fenian cycle of sagas. Hunting is the most prominent feature of them, for the Fenians were essentially a race of mighty hunters. But the creatures of their chase were not always flesh and blood. Enchanters who wished the Fenians ill could always lure them into danger by taking the shape of boar or deer, and many a story begins with an innocent chase and ends with a murderous battle. But out of such struggles the Fenians always emerge successfully, as Ossian is represented proudly boasting, “through truthfulness and the might of their hands”. The most famous chase of all is, however, not that of deer or boar, but of a woman and a man, Finn’s betrothed wife and his nephew Diarmait.[251] Ever fortunate in war, the Fenian leader found disaster in his love. Wishing for a wife in his old age, he sent to seek Grainne, the daughter of Cormac, the High-King of Ireland. Both King Cormac and his daughter consented, and Finn’s ambassadors returned with an invitation to the suitor to come in a fortnight’s time to claim his bride. He arrived with his picked band, and was received in state in the great banqueting-hall of Tara. There they feasted, and there Grainne, the king’s daughter, casting her eyes over the assembled Fenian heroes, saw Diarmait O’Duibhne. This Fenian Adonis had a beauty-spot upon his cheek which no woman could see without falling instantly in love with him. Grainne, for all her royal birth, was no exception to this rule. She asked a druid to point her out the principal guests. The druid told her all their names and exploits. Then she called for a jewelled drinking-horn, and, filling it with a drugged wine, sent it round to each in turn, except to Diarmait. None could be so discourteous as to refuse wine from the hand of a princess. All drank, and fell into deep sleep. Then, rising, she came to Diarmait, told him her passion for him, and asked for its return. “I will not love the betrothed of my chief,” he replied, “and, even if I wished, I dare not.” And he praised Finn’s virtues, and decried his own fame. But Grainne merely answered that she put him under _geasa_ (bonds which no hero could refuse to redeem) to flee with her; and at once went back to her chair before the rest of the company awoke from their slumber. After the feast, Diarmait went round to his comrades, one by one, and told them of Grainne’s love for him, and of the _geasa_ she had placed upon him to take her from Tara. He asked each of them what he ought to do. All answered that no hero could break a _geis_ put upon him by a woman. He even asked Finn, concealing Grainne’s name, and Finn gave him the same counsel as the others. That night, the lovers fled from Tara to the ford of the Shannon at Athlone, crossed it, and came to a place called the “Wood of the Two Tents”, where Diarmait wove a hut of branches for Grainne to shelter in.